


All Across the Field

by hazel_3017



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Accidental black eye, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Duper and Geno friendship, Light Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mpreg, Pining Geno, Tanger and Geno friendship, suspicion of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:50:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4234419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel_3017/pseuds/hazel_3017
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sid’s got that look on his face, the one that never bodes well for Zhenya. The one where he ends up doing things he doesn’t want to, but can’t say no, because Sidney asked and Zhenya has always been weak in the face of Sidney’s desires.</p><p>It’s why he once ended up stealing the Stanley Cup while it had been in Jordy’s custody; they’d made him believe it had been kidnapped for a good twelve hours before returning it.</p><p>(There had been police and NHL officials involved.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Across the Field

**Author's Note:**

> Really, I was only supposed to answer a prompt in my [tumblr](http://hazel3017.tumblr.com/) askbox, but then I started writing and plot happened. So, 14k later, here we are.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.
> 
> Revised, 29 sep, 2015.

Sidney is seven months pregnant when he breaks off the engagement and tosses the dick out on his ass.

It’s July, and Zhenya is still in Russia when the news break. It’s huge. Sidney’s face is blown up and magnified, his black eye plastered across the front page of what seems like every sports news outlet in the world. Everyone and their mothers are speculating as to what happened.

Zhenya suspects he knows, and it isn't pretty.

He doesn’t like Tom, never has. The man is an obnoxious dick on the best of days, but as far as Zhenya knows, he’s never been abusive. Clingy, maybe, and handsy too, but Zhenya has never pegged him as the sort of guy to hit on his pregnant partner.

Zhenya would have beat the shit out of him if he ever thought he would.

That’s not to say he’s never wanted to punch Tom in his smug, leering face, though. Tom is a true douche, possessive of Sidney’s time and body; Zhenya has heard him talking to his douche friends on more than one occasion, referring to Sid as the old chain and ball.

Fucking idiot.

Zhenya has felt a deep and visceral hate for him ever since Sid returned from their brief time off the previous Christmas, arriving back in Pittsburgh to announce both his pregnancy and engagement—to a guy none of them had ever even met. A childhood friend from Cole Harbour, he’d said, and Zhenya had hated him on sight, has lost count of how many times he’s wanted to dent in the bastard’s face with his fist.

“Have you seen it?” Tanger asks him when he calls, because Tanger spent the better part of their playoff run talking Zhenya down from doing something stupid whenever Tom came around, trailing after him when Sidney showed up at the rink to support them.

Sidney might not have been allowed to play anymore, but he was still their captain; he’d be standing with the rest of the coaches during practices, one hand on his pregnant belly while he bossed them all around as per his MO. 

They’d all taken to rub Sid’s stomach before games, for good luck, but Tom never liked it. He would tell them to keep their hands to themselves and off the goods, his glare petty and annoyed.

“It’s not worth it,” Tanger would hiss in Zhenya’s ear, as if he too wasn’t looking at where Tom was pawing obnoxiously at Sid’s ass; Tom refers to it as his now. He is that guy.

None of them, least of all Tanger and Zhenya, had understood why Sid ever gave Tom the time of day.

“I see now,” Zhenya says. He doesn't bother to ask what Tanger's talking about, not when there is a close up of Sid and his black eye glaring back at him from his computer screen. Zhenya feels something dark and violent simmer inside of him, and it takes him a while to find the proper words to ask, "What happen?" He’s already rusty from lack of practice over the summer, and the rage building inside his chest doesn’t make it any easier to remember his hard-earned English.

Zhenya doesn’t know how, doesn't know why, but he’s certain, so certain, that Tom is responsible for Sid's black eye.

He tries to remind himself that Tom has never been abusive before, at least as far as Zhenya has been aware, but he can't stop the ugly thought from forming; what if he is? What if Sid has hidden it from them and the black eye is not the first bruise courtesy of Tom?

Zhenya cracks his knuckles. It doesn't matter how Sid got the black eye; If Zhenya ever meets Tom in person again, he’s going to kill him.

He takes a deep breath, imagines his knuckles splitting open on the bastard’s face. It wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Tanger sighs loudly over the line, the sound an odd mix of exasperation and amusement when he says, “From what I understand, it was an accident. Tom was having a fight with a friend; Sid got in the middle of it and got an elbow to his eye for his troubles. He’s in Pittsburgh now. Mario’s got it covered.”

“And Tom?” Zhenya demands, relaxing minutely now that he knows it hadn't been on purpose, even if that dark part inside of him is crowing out, _see? You were right._ _Tom hurt Sid_.

He does take comfort in the fact that the bruised eye hadn't been intentional, though. He doesn't quite know what he'd do if it had turned out Tom really was abusive, if Sidney had been hurting for months already.

Zhenya would have done more than punch his face in, probably.

"Tom is still in Cole Harbour," Tanger says. "Moving out of Sid’s house, apparently. Troy is helping.”

Zhenya smirks. He can easily imagine just how well Troy is 'helping'. He knows Tom’s family are friends with the Crosbys. He also knows that Troy had been less than impressed to learn that Tom had knocked up his son. He was excited about the baby. He was _not_ excited about Tom.

Troy and Sid had fought about it often and loudly.

“Good,” Zhenya says, and can’t quite hold back his snickers. “You talk to Sid, да? He say anything else?”

“Just that it’s over between them and they’re not getting back together.”

Zhenya snorts. Of everything he's worried about in the short time since he found out about the black eye, Sid taking Tom back is not one of them.  

Tom isn't right for him. He never was. He doesn't even want a baby, had said as much once, and Sid holds grudges like no one else; Zhenya is pretty sure that Tom’s part in the baby’s life will be a bare minimum, if any, and none at all in Sid’s. 

“You going back?” he asks. Usually Tanger doesn’t return until late August, only a few days before Zhenya, but under the circumstances—

“No. He told us not to. Flower is about to go out of his mind with worry, though, but Duper is there. He’s still on a travel restriction, you know.”

“Mhm,” Zhenya hums, distracted. He’s busy booking a flight out of Moscow. Sidney will just have to deal. “He and Flower talk?”

“No. Sid’s ducking his calls. You know how things have been between them lately, and I think Sid’s embarrassed by all this.”

Zhenya does know, because more than Troy and even Zhenya himself, Flower hasn't been able to stand Tom. He’s been very vocal in encouraging Sid to dump his ass.

Sidney isn't taking it kindly.

“Stupid,” Zhenya says, because there is stubborn and then there is Sidney’s brand of stubborn. “Shouldn’t be embarrassed. Didn’t work out with Tom. Not Sid’s fault. He try.”

Zhenya doesn’t know anyone to ever have tried so hard to make a relationship work as Sidney did with Tom. He put up with so much of Tom's shit, for so long, Zhenya is frankly astonished Sidney didn't throw him out before.

Tanger makes a noise in agreement. He clears his throat. “Look, G, it's not like Sid will ever say, but he doesn’t actually want to be alone right now. That’s just Sid putting on a brave face. You’re going, right?” Tanger waits for Zhenya’s scoffed, _Of course_ , before continuing. “Just make sure you don’t make a side trip to Canada before landing in Pittsburgh. It’s the last thing he needs.”

Zhenya scowls, annoyed, but says, “I’m promise,” and is fairly certain he can manage that much.

**

He does make it to Pittsburgh without stopping by Cole Harbour first, and only Duper’s increasingly frequent texts urging him to come home staves off the inevitable meeting of Zhenya’s fist and Tom’s face.

He arrives at the airport jet lagged and cranky, but manages to summon up a smile for little Maeva Dupuis. Although she’s not so little anymore, Zhenya is forced to concede. She’s already eleven, and growing by the minute it feels like as she stands next to Duper, waiting for Zhenya in arrivals.

“Uncle Geno!” she cries out when she sees him. She runs over to him, throwing her arms around his waist and hugging him tight before remembering she’s too cool for that now.

God, Zhenya remembers when she was five years old and all she wanted to do was sit on his shoulders. _I’m taller than everyone else, Uncle Geno!_

“Hey,” Duper greets him. He shoulders one of Zhenya’s bags before pulling him into a bro hug. “Thank God you’re here,” he says, keeping his voice too low for Maeva to overhear. “Sid is being weird. Weirder than usual. You’ve always been better with him when he’s like this.”

Zhenya winces inwardly. Sid being weird can mean anything.

“Take me to him?”

Duper nods. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s drop Uncle Geno off at the Lemiuexs’.”

“He at Mario’s?” Zhenya asks, sending Duper a surprised look as they exit the airport. “Think he want to be home.”

Duper snorts, but it’s Maeva who says, “Uncle Sid says he’s tearing down the house. He wants to build a new one.”

“He what?” Zhenya misses a step, almost braining himself on the pavement as he swivels around to stare at Maeva. “House only one year old!” he says, aghast. What the hell is Sid thinking?

“See what I mean?” Duper asks, and yes, Zhenya supposes he does. Weird, indeed.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters under his breath, slipping into Russian for Maeva’s sake.

Duper grins at him, reaching over to slap him hard on the back. “He’s your problem now, mon ami.”

**

They only stop by Zhenya’s quick enough to drop off his bags before they make the short drive to the Lemieuxs’. Duper declines to come in with him, claiming he has to get Maeva back in time for dinner, and leaves Zhenya to ring the doorbell on his own. 

It’s Alexa who opens the door, and she looks so relieved by his presence Zhenya is a little taken aback with it; Sid was always much closer to the Lemiuex kids than him.

“Thank God you’re here,” she whispers. She grabs Zhenya’s hand, pulling him back inside the house before steering him in the direction of the kitchen. “He wants to move in again, Geno. I love him like he’s my brother, I do, but I’m going to be a senior in high school next year. Do you know how stressful that’s going to be? The last thing I need is a screaming baby on top of that.”

“Alexa!”

They turn to see Nathalie descending the stairs, frowning at her daughter disappointedly. “Try not to live up to the stereotype of teenage self-importance, hm?”

“Hi, Nathalie,” Geno says, smiling when she shoulders Alexa aside to pull him into a quick hug.

She kisses his cheek, whispering a warm, “Welcome home,” before pulling back to shoo Alexa up the stairs, her expression stern when she asks, “don’t you have a book report to finish?” She lifts her brows pointedly, her look expectant as she waits out Alexa.  

Zhenya glances between them nervously, surprised by the tension he can feel brewing between them. The kids have always been very easy going, and while only Alexa has yet to leave the nest, Zhenya knows they rarely gave Mario and Nathalie any trouble while growing up.

Alexa sighs in annoyance and rolls her eyes hard, but she does disappear up the stairs, leaving Nathalie behind to explain, “Summer school. You know how it is.” She gives Zhenya a wry smile.

“Ah,” he says, and doesn't know how it is at all, but thinks better of getting involved in that mess. “Sid, is he—?”

Nathalie sighs, exasperated, but she sounds indulgent when she says, “In the kitchen, eating up all our ice cream. Ben and Jerry’s—”

“Peanut butter cup,” Zhenya finishes, sharing a knowing look with her. Sidney likes to pretend he’s not as predictable as everyone makes him out to be, but some things are absolute. Ice cream, included.

Nathalie grins at him. “In the kitchen,” she says again, nodding towards the room.

Zhenya is not sure what he’s expecting to find when he walks through the door to the kitchen, but Sidney balancing on one hand and knee on top of the kitchen counter, his other arm straining as he tries to reach for something at the back of a cabinet, is not it.

Zhenya is across the floor with his hands at Sid’s hips to steady him before he even knows what he’s doing.

“Sid!” he barks out. “What the hell you doing? Such stupid! Is dangerous for you, what if you hurt baby, huh?”

Sidney lets out a strangled gasp, only Zhenya’s grip on him supporting his weight when he loses his balance, falling back against Zhenya’s chest in surprise.

“Geno!”

Zhenya curses up a storm, gentle as he eases Sidney to the floor. He is mindful of Sidney's stomach, grown even bigger since the last time they saw each other.

“What are you doing here?” Sidney exclaims, turning in his arms. He stares up at Zhenya through his swollen right eye.

Zhenya curses some more. He has to take deep breaths through his nose, feeling his nostrils flare with fury as he takes in the dark bruise. He lifts a hand to Sid’s face, his fingers closing around his jaw as he tilts Sidney's head to the side so he can better see the ugly purpling of the mark.

Sidney flinches under his touch. He wrenches his face out of Zhenya's grip, eyes shifting away in embarrassment, and Zhenya feels the anger grow.

He has to keep reminding himself that the black eye was the result of an accident, but it does little to appease his rage. Sidney is a hockey player; he’s never shied away from pain or even violence, but he’s shying away from Zhenya’s touch now and that is Tom’s fault. Accident or not.

“I’m kill him,” Zhenya says, his voice so full of promise it makes Sidney turn his gaze back on him. He narrows his eyes into a glare.

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“He hit you—”

Sidney pushes at his chest, hard, scowling when Zhenya does little more than move with the shove and stand his ground. Sidney pushes again, angry now, and Zhenya knows better than to engage him when he’s like this. He steps aside.

“You done?” he asks, lifting an unimpressed brow when Sidney stalks around him, walking over to the kitchen table where Zhenya can see he's left his tub of ice cream.

“Shut up,” Sidney says, and then, “stay out of it, Geno. I mean it.”

Zhenya stares at him; Sidney is seething with tightly held anger, his lips pressed into a tight line and his eyes blazing with indignation. He’s beautiful.

Zhenya has always thought so, but Sidney is his teammate and it’s never been worth the drama or the risk of losing his friendship. That doesn’t mean Zhenya hasn’t fantasised before, that he’s never jerked off to thoughts of Sid and what Zhenya wants to do to him no matter how guilty it's left him afterwards. That's the line Zhenya has drawn between them. He has looked at Sidney and imagined; he’s never looked and really wanted, but he does now, he realises.

Black eye and pregnant belly and all. Zhenya wants him.

“Maeva say you want destroy house, and Alexa say you want move back here. Is true?”

Sidney doesn't answer. He digs his spoon into the tub angrily, stabbing into the ice cream with great prejudice.

“Can you grab me the packet of marshmallows?” he asks, ignoring the question entirely as he gestures at the cabinet he’d been digging into earlier. “It’s in there.”

Zhenya blinks at him stupidly for a moment. Sid will be the death of him one day. He’s sure of it.

“You take such stupid risk for _marshmallows_? You crazy!”  

Sidney shrugs carelessly, but Zhenya can see the flush rising in his cheeks.

He’s not sure if it means Sid is embarrassed that he’s craving marshmallows—and it must be a craving, he thinks. Sid doesn’t normally eat marshmallows—or that he got caught doing something he knows was stupid, even if he won’t admit to it.

Zhenya’s not sure which of the two is worse.  

“Fine,” he says when Sidney keeps quiet. He turns back to the cabinet, grumbling under his breath about _crazy captain, can't believe_  and _such stupid_ and why is Zhenya following along with Sid's crazy demands anyway—as if Zhenya hasn't made it a habit of following Sid's lead.

He reaches for the marshmallows, and takes a special kind of pleasure in the outraged sound Sidney makes at him when he only has to stretch out his arm to grab the bag at the back of the cabinet. “Tiny,” Zhenya teases him, grinning when Sidney only rolls his eyes at the chirp and calls him an asshole.

Zhenya walks back to the table, the bag of marshmallows secured in his hand. He holds it out for Sidney, but refuses to let go when he grabs hold of it. “Move in with me,” Zhenya says instead, surprising them both.

It is not what he meant to say or what he’d intended when he decided to come back to Pittsburgh, but he finds that he likes the idea, is already warming to it. It will keep Sidney from being on his own with the added bonus of letting Zhenya keep an eye on him. At least this way, Zhenya won’t have to spend the rest of his summer at the Lemieuxs’, tip toeing around whatever the hell is going on between Nathalie and Alexa.

Sid is plenty enough to deal with on his own.

“You want me to move in with you?”

Zhenya frowns. “You think is bad idea?” He tries to gauge what Sid is thinking, but his face is schooled into the same careful blank mask he puts on for NHL officials and reporters. A few seconds tick by, the silence creeping towards the wrong end of awkward. Zhenya is just about to retract his offer, to say fuck it and announce he’ll just move in with the Lemieuxs’ right alongside Sid, but then—

“I’m calling my contractor tomorrow,” Sidney says, eyes narrowing on Zhenya, as if daring him to protest. “I’m having her demolish the house. I want a new one.”

Zhenya can tell by the steely look in his eyes that there is no changing his mind. Sid will be doing this no matter what anyone says; it doesn’t matter that the house was completed only a year ago, doesn’t matter that Sid _loves_ that house—and Zhenya knows that Sidney is sometimes a difficult person, but he is never intentionally so. It might not always make sense to everyone else, but there is always, _always_ a reason and rhyme to his choices.

Zhenya sighs in defeat. He says, “You have plan for new house? Might be long time before it finished.”

Sid shrugs again, looking unconcerned by this.

“So move in with me,” Zhenya says again. “Stay as long as you need.”

Sidney eyes him for a moment, his head tilted to one side, considering. He seem more at ease now that Zhenya isn’t fighting him on the house. “I’m pregnant.”

Zhenya blinks. “Yes?”

“I mean, I’m having a baby. Who knows when the new house will be ready? I, _we_ , might stay a long time.”

“Okay. So you stay long time. No problem.”

Sidney arches his brows at that, looking at Zhenya sceptically. “No problem? You, who find it hard to get up before nine even on game days, will have no problem with a screaming baby in the house?”

Zhenya shrugs. He doesn’t say anything about how he’s willing to do a lot of things he finds difficult for Sidney’s sake.

And it’s a baby. _Sidney’s_ baby. As if Zhenya isn’t going to love that child with every fiber of his being.

“No problem,” he repeats firmly.

Sidney smiles. It’s a small thing, a little wobbly, maybe, as if he hasn’t smiled a lot recently. But it’s real and it’s honest, and it makes Zhenya feel all kinds of things he has no business feeling for someone who is his friend and teammate. His _captain_.

“Okay,” says Sidney. He looks down at his stomach, rubbing slow circles over the large bump. “I guess we’re moving in with you.”

Zhenya swallows, staring unblinkingly at the picture he makes. He’s gorgeous, really, the very definition of the glowing pregnant person.

 _Oh_.

Zhenya is so dumb. So very, very dumb.

He did not think this through _at all_.

**

Moving Sidney into his house takes more effort than Zhenya anticipated.

Sidney’s bruise is already well on its way to fading by the time they’ve arranged for all his stuff to be moved into storage before his house gets demolished. They even manage to install a nursery next to the upstair guestroom that will be Sid's for however long he intends to stay.

Zhenya remembers how long it took before his previous house stood finished; it could be _years_ before Sidney is anywhere close to ready to move out. Installing a nursery seems entirely necessary.

Sidney and Zhenya have been co-existing for years. At the rink, in hotels, in planes, buses.

Actually living with Sid, though, turns out to be different. Suddenly, boundaries that Zhenya put up years ago, to protect his fragile heart, to protect his friendship with Sidney, are being crossed and blurred out. They’re tentative with each other at first. It takes them a couple of days to figure out how this arrangement is going to work, and even then Zhenya suspects it will take some time before they both feel able to relax properly.

A lot of the tension lies with Sidney, who is so very clearly out of his comfort zone nearly twice Zhenya suggests he move back to Mario’s. It’s obvious that something is wearing on him, that he is exhausted.

So they're living together as best they can, tip toeing around each other more often than not. For about a week, this strange cohabitation remains the status quo, tentative as it is. That is until, one night, Zhenya is woken by the sound of Sidney pacing outside in the hall.

Zhenya lies in his bed for a moment; he can hear the muffled sound of Sidney humming through the door, off tune as usual. He knuckles at his eyes tiredly before rolling out of bed, stumbling to his feet and making his way out into the hall.

“Sid?”

He doesn’t even try to hide his smile when Sidney startles, wobbling a little as he spins on his heel. Zhenya chuckles, his hands reaching out to settle on Sidney’s waist unthinkingly.

“Careful,” Zhenya teases as he helps steady him, feeling impossibly fond by his annoyed glare.

Sidney's centre of gravity has been shifting ever since the baby bump really started to grow. He hates it.

“Sid?” Zhenya says again, his smile slipping as Sidney's glare is replaced by a sudden gobsmacked look. “You okay? Baby okay?”

He’s about to withdraw his hands, starting to get freaked out by the way Sidney is stunned into silence. He's panicking, thinking something might be wrong with the baby, with Sid, and where the hell is his phone? He needs to call an ambula—

“No! Wait,” Sidney blurts out. He grabs hold of Zhenya’s hands, placing them back over the taut skin of his belly, firm even through the thin fabric of the sweater he usually sleeps in. They stand there, caught up in this strange moment, and Zhenya tries desperately to keep his internal freak out from showing on his face.

“Sid—”

“Hush!”

Zhenya has no clue as to what is going on, but it’s starting to get weird. Weirder than things with Sid usually get.

“Sid,” he tries again when it looks as if he has fallen asleep on his feet, a blissed out look on his face.

“The baby is not moving,” Sidney whispers, and sounds far more relieved about that than someone pregnant and unable to feel their baby move should be, Zhenya thinks. Then again, he’s not the one who is pregnant.

“Okay? Baby not move, is good?”

Sidney nods. His eyes are still closed and he hums happily. He sounds drunk, almost. “The baby’s been kicking for hours now. It’s not unusual, especially at this time, but tonight it’s just been relentless.” He winces a little, using Zhenya’s hand to rub across what must be a sore spot on his stomach.

Zhenya frowns in concern. “This normal?” he asks. He doesn't like the idea that Sidney could be in constant pain like this.

Sidney hums again, but he doesn’t answer. He sways lightly on his feet, and Zhenya figures he needs to get him back to his bed.

“Come on,” he says. “Think you need sleep. Baby too.”

He helps Sidney back into his room, supporting the bulk of his weight, considerable even before the added baby bump.

“I’m tired,” Sidney mumbles under his breath. He really must be too; he's unusually pliant as Zhenya all but manhandles him into his bed, fussing with the duvet and tucking Sidney in, wishing him a soft goodnight before returning to his own room.

He climbs into bed, tossing and turning restlessly. His eyes are tired and his mind is drifting, thinking about everything and nothing, but sleep continues to elude him. Finally, in a desperate bid for something to knock him out, Zhenya snakes a hand into his sleep pants, his mind summoning up an image of a faceless nobody. Someone nameless with nondescript features and a hot body that Zhenya can jerk off to.

It doesn’t take much for his dick to get with the program, but his mind fails him, gleefully rebelling as the faceless image is replaced by the memory of Sidney’s blissed out face, his stark relief so easily mistaken for pleasure. And Zhenya had put that look on his face.

He groans, closing his dry hand around his cock, thinking about all the other things he could do to make him look like that again.

He’d take such good care of him, Zhenya thinks. He’d keep his touch light and gentle, wanting Sidney to feel nothing but pleasure, nothing but love and affection from Zhenya’s touch. He’d have him come twice over. Have him so wrung out with pleasure he’d sleep through the feeling of his baby using his insides as a bouncy castle.

“Geno?”

There’s a knock on his door, and Zhenya wrenches his hand out of his pants, muffling a curse at the accidental abuse his cock suffers.

“Geno? Are you awake?”

“Yes, I’m up. I’m awake,” he says, the words coming out all rushed as he wipes his hand against his sweats, trying not to look like he’d just been fantasising about him when Sidney opens the door.

He’s biting at his lip, one hand resting against the door frame and the other on his stomach. “The baby woke me up again,” he says. He pauses, hesitating a little before he asks, “Could I, I mean, do you think I could sleep in here with you tonight?”

Zhenya stares at him.

“What?” he manages to croak out.

“I know this isn’t—” Sidney breaks off. He shifts on his feet, and to Zhenya’s horror, he looks a little teary eyed. “Look, this is weird, I know that, but I’m so tired, Geno. Please, I just need to sleep and I don’t know why, but you calmed the baby down and—”

“Okay, okay. Hey.” Zhenya is up and out of bed in seconds, moving to stand by Sidney’s side so he can pull him into a hug, his grip firm even as the baby bump gets in the way. Sidney must be beyond exhausted to be this upset. To let Zhenya see him this way.

“Thank you,” Sidney whispers gratefully against his shoulder, his fingers digging into Zhenya's back as he returns the hug. “Thank you.”

Zhenya shushes him, mumbling out words of comfort as he guides Sidney over to his bed.

He figures it will be fine. Zhenya can handle Sidney sleeping in his bed for a night.

It’s just one night, after all.

**

But of course it’s not.

When Sidney wakes up the next day, far later than he usually allows himself, he is well rested and rejuvenated from a calm and painless night where he’d actually managed more than a few hours of sleep—a rarity these days, he informs Zhenya solemnly. He quickly determines that Zhenya has some kind of weird power that is keeping his baby from trying to break a rib from the inside out and consequently refuses to move back into his own room.

And, well, it’s not as though Zhenya is going to deny him the reprieve. He never wants to see Sidney in pain.

It becomes a thing they do, sharing a bed. Just another staple of their friendship, really.

Duper, having invited himself over for lunch a few days later, almost kills himself laughing when he finds out.

“No, it’s really not,” he says when he manages to calm down enough to form actual words. He looks between the two of them, wiping a stray tear from his eye as he says, “You do realise how incredibly weird this is, non? Normal friends do not share a bed when there’s, like, a dozen others to choose from.”

Sidney scowls at him and bites into his PB&J sandwich viciously. “One friend helping another is perfectly normal,” he tells Duper around his food.

Zhenya makes a face. “Swallow before talk,” he advises. He pokes at the bulge in Sidney’s cheek, grinning wide when he has to duck away from the hand Sidney bats at him in annoyance.

Across the kitchen table, Duper stares at them in amusement.

“So,” he comments when he’s finished off his own plate, nodding at Sid. “Your eye is looking much better these days. Can hardly see a bruise now.” He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t mention Tom, but Sidney stiffens in his seat all the same, his face shutting down.

“Yes,” is all he says.

Zhenya feels the familiar surge of anger at the mention of Tom and Sidney’s black eye, but he manages to keep his silence and glares over at Duper instead.

Sid doesn’t like talking about it, doesn’t like talking about Tom, and Zhenya respects that, he does. He’s giving Sidney time and space to deal with the fact that the relationship he was so determined to work for turned out to be such a bust. Mostly, he thinks, Sidney is annoyed at himself. He’d gotten pregnant accidentally, and Tom was a childhood friend; it made sense for them to get married and get the house with the white picket fence and all that. That was what normal people did, so Sidney was determined to do it too, screw everything else.

Duper heaves a huge sigh, but he lets it go. “Have you talked to Flower at least,” he asks, because apparently he’s determined to be a pain in the ass today.

Sidney hasn’t spoken with Flower since before he left for Cole Harbour, still furious at Flower’s latest attempt to make him see reason and break off the engagement.

It has put a strain on their friendship unlike anything before, and Zhenya isn’t sure if Sidney is avoiding him because Flower was right when he kept insisting that Tom was all wrong for him, or if it’s because he didn’t listen whenever Flower suggested Sidney leave him. 

Both, probably.

“Jesus Christ, Duper!” Sidney snaps at him. “Will you leave it alone?”

He pushes his chair away from the table, his movements stiff and jerky as he stalks out of the kitchen as much as his condition allows him.

They stare after him, the silence tense and angry in Sidney’s absence.

“For fuck’s sake, Pascal,” Zhenya breathes out. He runs a hand through his hair tiredly, thinking it’s too early to be dealing with this shit. “Always have to push.”

Duper makes a guilty face at the accusation, looking contrite. “Merde,” he says. “Yeah, okay, sorry. I just wanted to get him to talk to Flower already. They’re best friends! They shouldn’t be avoiding each other like this.”

Zhenya frowns, but he can’t help but agree. He knows Sidney misses Flower. Even if he won’t admit it, he misses having him around.

“I’ll talk to him,” he promises, and knows that talking to Sidney and actually making him listen are two very different things.

Before, it had actually been possible to reason with him, but pregnancy has made dealing with Sid a crapshoot. There is no predicting the outcome.

(It says a lot about the state of his life, Zhenya feels, that he only finds this endearing.)

**

That night, Zhenya spends a brief moment to long for the time before pillow talk consisted of navigating Sidney’s moods and the real estate of his own bed. God damn but Sidney takes up a lot of room.

“You know,” he says when he’s rubbing some kind of lotion on Sid’s belly to help with the itching of his stretch marks, because this is what their friendship has been reduced to; Sidney taking ownership of Zhenya’s bed while he bosses him around to do his bidding.

Not so different from before, really.

“You should call Flower. Good for you to talk, maybe.”

Sidney scoffs and otherwise ignores him, keeping his focus on the book he’s pretending to read. It’s a children’s book. Sidney has been screening them in case they prove unsuitable for his child’s consumption.

“Sid,” Zhenya says disapprovingly.

He reaches down to pinch the inside of Sid's thigh when he continues to ignore him.

“Hey!”

“You done pouting?”

“I’m not pouting,” Sidney says, pout very much in place. He must realise, glaring at Zhenya when he can’t help but laugh at him. Sidney hides his face behind the book.

“It’s cute,” Zhenya teases, delighting in the blush he can see spread over Sidney’s cheeks when he reaches over to push the book out of the way. “Why not call Flower? know you want to.”

Sidney sighs. He puts his book away before pulling his shirt back over his stomach now that Zhenya has finished his task. “I don’t want to hear him say ‘I told you so’.”

Zhenya starts. “He won’t!” He’ll think it, but he won’t actually say it. Flower has more tact than that. “He won’t,” he says again when Sidney refuses to look at him. He settles next to him on the bed, lifting an arm to rest over Sid's expanding waist. “He misses you. I’m know, Tanger tell me all the time.”

“Yeah?” Sidney asks. He sounds small.

Zhenya hums. “Never lie to you,” he promises, smiling as Sidney snuggles into him, shifting in Zhenya’s hold before he finds a position he can be somewhat comfortable in.

Sidney is never really comfortable anymore, his stomach too big to find a position to offer any real comfort.

Zhenya lifts his head to press a kiss against Sid's temple. “Call him,” he says, and when he settles down to sleep, he knows from Sidney’s distracted grunt that he has given him something to think about.

**

Zhenya gets a text from Flower late the next day.

_Thank you_ , is all it says.

He stares at it for a second before he goes looking for Sid.

He finds him in the nursery. He’s standing next to the crib, folding and refolding the new baby blanket he’d bought the other day; he’d spent more than twenty minutes deliberating over it before making the purchase.

“You have talk with Flower?”

Sidney glances up at him before looking away, too quick for Zhenya to pick up on what mood he’s in. He has to hold back a weary sigh, deciding it’s probably best to approach with caution. He steps into the room and walks over to join Sidney by the crib, gently removing the baby blanket from his hands before he says, “You okay? Have good talk?”

Sidney nods silently, his fingers moving to trail over the railing of the crib now that he can’t fiddle with the blanket. It is the same crib Sidney had slept in as an infant, and Taylor too. Troy had sanded and repainted the old wood when he found out about Sidney’s pregnancy. He might not care much for Tom, but he was so excited to become a grandfather, shipping the crib to Pittsburgh with clear instructions on how to properly install it.

Zhenya has been forced to assemble it twice already. Once, in Sidney’s house, months ago when the crib had first arrived, and now in his own home.

“And? What Flower say?”

“Well, he didn’t say ‘I told you so’, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Zhenya just barely keeps from pulling a grimace. He doesn’t understand why Sidney sounds so upset about that. It was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

“Okay?” he says slowly, dragging the word out uncertainly. “Think that what you want?”

Sidney makes a wordless sound of frustration, throwing his hands in the air, limbs stiff and agitated. He says, “No! That’s not what I wanted. I wanted for him not to be able to say it. I wanted for him to be wrong.”

Zhenya thinks he knows what this is really about. He suspects it has very little to do with Flower at all.

Shit. The last thing he wants to do is talk about Tom, about Sidney’s relationship with him, but it’s obvious that Sid _needs_ to talk about it, no matter how much he denies it. And while it kills him to think about Sidney with another man, Zhenya will do this for him, loves him too much not to be what Sidney needs right now.

Someone willing to listen. Someone who won’t judge him.

“I’m think you not so mad at Flower,” he says. “I’m think you mad at Tom.”

Sidney scoffs. “Flower’s a jerk.”

“No, Tom is jerk. Flower is honest, is why you mad.”

It’s the first time Zhenya admits to his less than charitable thoughts about Tom in Sidney’s presence, but not even Sid is so oblivious that he could have missed how Tom and Zhenya felt about each other.

A case of unbridled, mutual hate if ever there was one.

Sidney scowls at him, but he doesn’t deny it. Zhenya has to hold back a smug smile. His silence says more than Sidney would like, he’s sure.

Sid must realise the same, and as the silence stretch on, the anger leaves him as sudden as it came, and what is left behind is a weary, exhausted version of himself.

Zhenya doesn’t like it. He never wants to see Sidney like this.

He reaches out slowly, giving Sidney plenty of time to turn away before pulling him into his arms. He wishes he could absorb all of Sidney’s weariness into himself, to leave behind only the joy and excitement of his impending parenthood.

He tightens his hold on him and Sidney melts into it, letting his head fall forward to rest against Zhenya’s chest.

They stand like that for a while, taking comfort from each other until finally, Sidney says, “Tom never proposed.”

What?

Zhenya is about to pull back, to explain to Sidney just how little sense that makes, because when the engagement was announced, Tanger and Duper had plied him with so much alcohol it had dulled his sudden impulse to jump off a cliff, but Sidney, strong even now without months of hockey, holds him in place.

“It was my idea,” Sid admits, whispering the confession into Zhenya’s chest. “I never planned to get pregnant, it just happened. And Tom is a friend from back home and—”

He breaks off, finally lifting his head to meet Zhenya’s surprised eyes.

“I was embarrassed, G. Last December, we had a couple of days in Montreal, do you remember that? I didn’t even know Tom would be there, but then he called me up and it was just sex, you know? Commitment free and all that. Just a bit of fun.”

Sidney is biting his lip, worrying the flesh between his teeth, and Zhenya tries very, very hard not to think about Sidney and sex in the same context, commitment free or otherwise.

He’s only a little successful.

“Then find out about baby?” he asks. “Think you have to be together just because of baby?”

Sidney shrugs, and Zhenya had suspected sometimes, but mostly he had thought it was real between them, that Sidney and Tom were in love despite how obviously wrong they were for each other.

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” says Sidney. “To give the baby a proper home with a proper family. I knew Tom didn’t really want the same, but once I got it into my head—” He sighs, shaking his head at himself. “You know how I get.”

Yes, Zhenya does know.

There is stubborn and there is Sidney’s brand of stubborn, and Zhenya—

Zhenya is so incredibly stupidly in love with him.

“So you put up with Tom’s crap,” he says, because Sidney had and no one had understood why. Tom might be a childhood friend and the father of his baby, but he’d been a dick to Sid the entire time they’d been together.

He was uncouth and lecherous, had no ambition, played video games all day and partied with his friends during the night. All while living on Sidney’s dime.

To make matters worse, anything pregnancy related—doctor’s appointments, painting the nursery—he’d considered a chore.

The only thing Tom seemed to have enjoyed being with Sidney was, well, _being with Sidney._

Zhenya hates him so, so much.

“It wasn’t that bad. And part of it was my fault; I should never have convinced him to marry me.”

Thank God they didn’t, is Zhenya’s first thought to that, followed by, “No, was bad. Bad for both, maybe, but still bad.”

Sid smiles, crooked and small. “Maybe,” he allows, and Zhenya can’t help but mirror his smile.

They stare at each other, and it’s Sidney who looks away first, a small blush spreading over his cheeks.

“Come on,” he says, grabbing Zhenya’s hand in his before dragging him out of the room. “I’m hungry. You have to make me something to eat.”

And because Sidney in his kitchen unchaperoned is a disaster waiting to happen—his idea of cooking consists of microwaving pasta; Zhenya is fairly certain he’d starve without him—he follows dutifully, one step behind like usual.

**

Their talk does Sidney a world of good, tension bleeding out of his shoulders that neither of them had even realised was there. His renewed and constant texting with Flower appears to help as well.

Zhenya has no idea what the hell Flower is telling him, but whatever it is, Sidney grows more confident in his ability to raise a child by the day, it feels like.

It isn’t so much that Sid was doubting his ability before, he thinks, as it is having to face a reality where he’ll be doing it without Tom.

(Not alone, though. Never alone.)

Zhenya, on the other hand, worries constantly.

He worries about Sidney, and about Tom and what his role will be in Sidney’s life. In the baby’s.

He worries about what his own will be.

Sidney and Zhenya have been living together for nearly a month now. Both their birthdays have come and gone without much fanfare, and everyday, Zhenya finds it harder and harder to remember that Sidney is just his friend and nothing more.

It’s easy to forget when Sidney enters his eighth month of pregnancy and his hormones start turning more unpredictable. It’s easy to forget when all of Zhenya’s existence boils down to Sidney and the baby and preparing for the baby and the upcoming season both.

He loses count of how many times he runs out for emergency midnight cravings, anything from ice cream to, once, horrifyingly, canned tuna and mayo.

He tags along to doctor’s appointments and Lamaze classes, and gives more foot and back rubs than he’s ever given any of his actual partners.

And he loves it, is the thing. He loves having Sidney near. Loves having him in his bed and being allowed to touch and hold him close. He loves Sidney, is **in** love with him, and therein lies the problem.

Zhenya is supposed to be his friend. Sidney is counting on him to be his friend, and Zhenya is messing it up.

But God help him, Sid isn’t making it easy on him.

Not when summer in Pittsburgh this year gets to the point where Sidney is so hot he takes to walk around in bicycle shorts and an oversized t-shirt and little else. Not when he’s devouring his ice cream as though it is his last meal on Earth, tongue wrapped around his spoon like he’s auditioning for a damn porn. 

Zhenya is so full of pent up sexual tension he fears he will combust from it if he doesn’t take care of his blue balls soon; lying next to Sidney every night and listening to him moan in his sleep, makes it so much worse.

He is about to go out of his mind, and then nearly does, when one night, Sidney says, “I need you to jerk me off.”

Zhenya, on his way into the bathroom, walks into the door.

“Fucking—”

“Geno! Are you okay?”

Zhenya is not okay. He thinks his nose might be broken, his lower face is covered in blood, and he needs Duper to drive him to the ER because Sid is too pregnant to drive.

“Oh, wow,” Duper says when he arrives to pick him up. He’s been grumbling about annoying friends dragging him away from his wife and out of bed in the middle of the night, but then he lies eyes on Zhenya and a guilty-looking Sidney behind him, and seems to think better of saying anything else.

Zhenya is grateful he has enough sense to not make a big deal out of this. He’s annoyed enough already.

Luckily, his nose isn’t actually broken.

“Just a little banged up,” the doctor informs him cheerfully. She’s a tiny thing, and the Penguins stickers on her pink crocs mark her as a fan. Sidney would have loved her.

“You’ll be right as rain when the season starts up.”

She tapes up his nose, prescribes him some painkillers, and gleefully accepts Duper’s signature on the sole of one pink croc before sending them on their way.

“So,” Duper says in the car on their way back to Zhenya’s. “You gonna tell me what happened?”

“No.”

Duper spares him a quick glance. “This has something to with Sid, non?”

Zhenya scowls. He looks out the window of the passenger seat and remembers Sidney asking him to jerk him off. Fucking hell.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Duper says when Zhenya deigns not to answer. “Look, G, I love Sid, but you’re my friend too. Are you sure it’s okay for you to keep living together?” He gentles his voice and keeps his eyes on the road to spare Zhenya the humiliation of having to meet his gaze when he says, “It’s obvious you have feelings for him.” 

Zhenya doesn’t deny it. They both know it would be a lie.

He sighs. “Pascal,” he says quietly, “please, no more talk.”

They drive the rest of the way in silence.

**

Sidney, because he’s never learned to leave well enough alone, brings it up again the next night.

At least this time he waits until Zhenya is horizontal and in bed. No chance for broken noses.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says. Again. He’s been apologising all day.

Zhenya grunts, one hand lifting to pat at his arm comfortingly. “S’okay. Was accident,” he says, and prays for that to be it even as he knows it’s not; Sid’s got that look on his face, the one that never bodes well for Zhenya. The one where Zhenya ends up doing things he doesn’t want to, but can’t say no, because Sidney asked and Zhenya has always been weak in the face of Sidney’s desires.

It’s why he once ended up stealing the Stanley Cup from Jordy’s custody; they’d made him believe it had been kidnapped for a good twelve hours before returning it.

(There had been police and NHL officials involved.)

And it’s why he’s going to end up jerking Sid off, even if it kills him. Because Sidney asked.

Sidney sighs loudly. He grabs Zhenya’s hand from his arm and places it over his stomach instead. “Geno,” he starts. “I know it’s a lot to ask from you, and it’s totally inappropriate, but I’m dying here.”

The look he sends Zhenya is so pitiful he can already feel himself capitulating a little bit.

“My hormones are driving me crazy,” Sid continues explaining. “I’m horny all the time! And I—”

He breaks off, blushing such a violent shade of red Zhenya can’t help but be intrigued.

“And you what?” he asks, interested despite himself.

Sidney mutters unhappily under his breath. “I can’t reach anymore, okay? My stomach is too big.”

It takes Zhenya the better part of ten minutes and Sidney pushing him to the floor in outrage before he manages to stop laughing.

“Fuck off, you jerk! Stop laughing already! _Geno_!”

Zhenya does, eventually. He rolls onto his back, staring up at where Sidney is glaring at him from his side of the bed. He’s too big now to really lean across the mattress, and from Zhenya’s position on the floor, they only just manage to lock eyes.

He gets to his feet and settles back on the bed, shoulders still shaking with silent laughter.

“Geno,” Sidney whines, his tongue catching on the ‘no’ and dragging it out. “I’m being serious here.”

Zhenya watches him. Yes, you are, he thinks.

He takes in the healthy flush in his cheeks, the stubborn clench of his jaw, and the strange gleam in his eyes.

Embarrassment, Zhenya realises. Sid’s feeling embarrassed.

He feels the mirth leave him then, feels the rest of his resistance, what little there was, slip away.

“Sid,” he says helplessly, because he’s going to do this for him, obviously he is, but he doesn’t know how badly it will cost him. Doesn’t know how much of a strain it will be on his heart.

Taking care of Sid in this way won’t just blur the lines between them; it will erase them entirely.

And where does that leave Zhenya?

Because there will come a day when Sidney doesn’t need him anymore and Zhenya has to let him go, and he won’t want to. He doesn’t ever want to.

“Please,” Sidney says. He finds Zhenya’s hand, tangling their fingers together. “Please."

Zhenya looks down at their joint hands, eyes tracing Sidney’s thumb as it strokes over the top of Zhenya’s pinky.

He says, “Okay.”

**

The next day is decidedly weird. Zhenya is a little freaked out.

It’s not that things are weird between them now that Zhenya knows the weight and feel of Sidney’s cock in his hand, knows the sound of his breathless moans as he comes and the image he makes, wrung out and sated from orgasm.

No, things were already weird between them; Zhenya doesn’t need Duper to tell him how strange his and Sidney’s friendship has become.

What is weird is how normal everything is.

Sidney wakes up first as usual, slow as he shuffles out of bed. Zhenya is caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness, grunting in acknowledgement when Sidney drags his fingers over the exposed skin of Zhenya’s foot as he walks by on his way into the bathroom.

He dozes while Sidney finishes his morning ablutions, idly listening to the sound of the shower being turned on and then off again. It’s not until he hears Sidney brushing his teeth before he decides to wake up for real and starts going about his own morning routine.

They’re as comfortable and at ease in each other’s presence as they always are, Sidney smiling at him, sweet and soft, when they meet in the open door of the bathroom.

“Morning,” Sidney says. He pushes up onto his toes, pressing a dry kiss to the corner of Zhenya’s mouth before hip checking him to the side, making enough room to move past him. “I’m going to get the kettle started,” he says.

Sidney’s idea of cooking might consist of microwaving pasta, but he makes tea like a champ.

Zhenya hums at him absently as he steps into the bathroom, still not awake enough to form actual words. It’s not until he’s emerging from the shower that he realises what has happened.

Sid and Zhenya have always been very affectionate with each other, more than most friends, certainly, but casual kisses has never been the norm for them.

Then again, Zhenya has never jerked him off before either.

Somehow, he feels more off kilter by the kiss than the favour he’d done Sid the night before. Jerking him off had been weird and wonderful and something significant, something Zhenya has spent a long time thinking he would never get to do.

But the kiss is different. The kiss was quick, easy. As if Sidney kisses him like that everyday; nothing unusual about it.

Except it is, of course; Sidney never has before and Zhenya isn’t sure how he’s supposed to react to that. Isn’t sure if it means something beyond Sidney showing his gratitude for last night or if this is going to be one of those things between them. Like sharing a bed.

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to act when he finally makes his way into the kitchen, but Sidney has no such problems, behaving just as he normally does. He seems entirely oblivious to Zhenya’s nerves.

“Can we go out for burgers?” he asks him hopefully when he sees Zhenya. He’s holding out a steaming mug of Earl Grey in offer, his hazel eyes unusually wide as he stares up at him.

It’s all an attempt at sweetening him up, Zhenya knows, because when Sid says burgers, what he really means is McDonald’s.

“Doctor say not supposed to,” Zhenya reminds him, accepting the cup into his hands. “Give you heartburn.”

“She said I shouldn’t, not that I couldn’t,” Sidney says importantly, stressing the differences between the two. “A burger once in a while is probably okay.”

Zhenya snorts. No way Sidney would stop at one burger.

“We go to Mario’s instead,” he says. “Ask nice and Nathalie make pancakes for you.”

Sidney doesn’t look entirely convinced, which means his craving is a bad one this time, but he does look considering. Nathalie’s pancake recipe is no joke, after all.

“Fine. But if we end up in the middle of another fight between Alexa and Nathalie, know that we could have been at McDonald’s.”

Zhenya winces. He still isn’t sure what’s going on between the two; he has heartily stuck to Sidney’s advice not to get involved whenever they visit the Lemieuxs. He will never, as long as he lives, understand women. Still, if he can spare Sidney the heartburn-inducing nightmare that is a Mcdonald’s meal, he will risk it.

“Yes, yes. Will be all my fault.”

“Hey,” Sid begins when he lets Zhenya guide him into the foyer, stuffing his feet into his crocs—they’re the only pair of shoes he has that are still able to accommodate his swollen feet—before waiting patiently for Zhenya to help him into his jacket.

“We’re okay, right? Last night, it didn’t make things weird between us, right?”

Sidney turns to face him, and for the first time that morning, Zhenya can see something like worry on his face.

“We always weird,” he says. They really are and he feels that cannot be stressed enough.

It’s the best thing he could have said; Sid is startled into a surprised laugh, loud and unrestrained.

He says, “I guess you’re right,” and the wide grin on his face does all sorts of things to Zhenya’s heart.

Shit.

They’re so far from okay it’s not even funny, but it’s Zhenya’s problem, and he will handle it as he always has.

“Of course I’m right,” he says loudly, putting a hand to the small of Sidney’s back, gentle as he pushes him out the door. “I’m best.”

**

It turns out to be one of those things.

Zhenya had said they were okay—or close enough to it—and Sidney takes that to mean that they should touch all the time.

Not counting the kiss Sidney has decided is now an obligatory part of their morning, Zhenya loses count of how many times Sidney will card his fingers through Zhenya’s hair or take hold of his hand only to place it over Sid’s bulging stomach—which isn’t new, exactly, but feels different now anyway.

It takes Zhenya jerking Sidney off twice more before he’s bullied into letting Sid return the favour, and somehow, making out while trading handjobs becomes another staple of their friendship.

Never before has Zhenya gotten off so much and been so unhappy about it.

The real problem, he determines, is that he doesn’t want to stop. He can’t, not when Sidney’s hand on his dick is something that feels so good, something he gets to experience on the regular.

Not when Sidney looks at him as if he is all that matters in those moments.

It’s addictive.

Zhenya has no idea how he’s supposed to survive without it.

It goes from bad to worse when one night, as Zhenya is twisting his hand just so, familiar with Sidney’s needs and likes after nearly two weeks of this, Sidney blurts out, “Fuck me. I need you to fuck me.”

Zhenya stills.

Very gently, ignoring Sidney’s pitiful, “ _No!_ ”, he pulls his hand back, staring up at Sidney with wide, shocked eyes.

“Not funny, Sid,” he says.

Sidney lifts his head. “Does it look like I’m joking?” he demands, and then flushes, looking away from Zhenya’s gaze. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how wet this makes me.”

Zhenya does know. He’s been very diligently ‘not thinking about it’ ever since he first made the discovery, his hand slipping through the slick of it when’d jerked off Sidney from behind once because the baby’s weight made it so that it was painful for him to lie on his back sometimes.

Zhenya deserves a fucking medal for not having brought it up at all. He has almost blown his load too soon more times than his ego can handle because Sidney’s been so wet and so slick, and Zhenya made him so.

Finally, he says what he should have said from the very beginning. “This is very bad idea. Worst."

But it’s not a ‘no’, and Sidney jumps on it with his usual bulldogged determination.

“Please,” he says, going right for his weak spot. “Please.” He widens his thighs just that little bit more in invitation, but Zhenya was a lost cause far before this moment. He was never going to say no.

He shifts on the bed until he can grab Sidney’s face in his hands, forcing their eyes to meet. “You sure?” he asks, his voice low and serious, willing Sidney to understand that he’s not messing around here.

Sidney flutters his eyes at him. He leans forward, pressing his lips against Zhenya’s for a quick, familiar kiss. “Please,” he says again.

It’s all Zhenya needs.

“Make you feel so good, Sid,” he says, gently manoeuvring him until he has Sidney on his side, knees pulled up with a pillow between them. He leans over to press a sweet kiss to Sidney’s cheek. “So good,” he promises.

Sidney is already breathing heavily by the time Zhenya settles behind him, fingers teasing at his hole, stroking through the wet slick with the occasional push against his rim.

He smiles smugly at the breathless little gasps Sidney can’t hold back.

“Geno,” he says, impatient as ever. “C’mon. Want to feel you in me. Want it so bad, G.”

Zhenya hums at him, pleased. He presses sweet kisses against Sidney’s naked shoulder as he lets a lone finger push at his hole until he breaches the rim. Sidney moans in approval, and Zhenya dares pushing it in a little deeper, amazed at the ease with which it just slides right in; Sidney is so very, very wet.

“Good?” he asks, laughing when Sidney flails his hand, trying to hit Zhenya where he is nestled up behind him.

“What do you think?” he demands, and then says little else when Zhenya pulls out his finger only to push back in with two.

“Think you like,” Zhenya says, gently scissoring his fingers inside of him. His eyes are glued to the side of Sidney’s face, watching for the slightest hint of pain. At one of Sidney’s check ups, the doctor had helpfully informed them that sex during the pregnancy would be perfectly safe, but Zhenya can’t help but worry.

“Think you love,” he continues. His cock is aching from how hard he is, but Zhenya takes his time. He likes fingering Sid, delights in the whine escaping his mouth and the way he angles his hips back, seeking Zhenya’s fingers every time he withdraws.

“Geno,” Sidney says. “ _Please_. It’s so good.”

Zhenya has to close his eyes at his words. He breathes in deeply, half in disbelief that they’re doing this, that Zhenya gets to have Sidney like this.

“Geno, come on. I want you so bad. _Geno_.”

Sidney is getting more and more impatient, and not even the third finger Zhenya gives him is enough to appease him.

He wants to drag it out, wants to make it so good for him that Sidney will never sleep with another guy again without comparing him to Zhenya, but he is only a man, and Sidney is begging him so sweetly.

“Okay. Okay, sweetheart,” Zhenya says, slipping into Russian for a second as he withdraws his fingers entirely. He drops a few kisses across Sidney’s shoulder, tasting the salt of his skin. “I’m give you what you want.”

He grabs his cock and gives it a few tugs, his hand wet with Sidney’s slick. He moves into position at Sid’s opening and nearly comes when the head of his dick catches on his rim.

He lets out a heartfelt, "Fuck," and in front of him, Sidney is panting, hand struggling to reach his own dick as he chants out, “come on, get in me, already. Come on, come on, _come on._ ”

Zhenya pushes in, making a strangled sound in the back of his throat at the feel of Sidney clenching around him.

Holding still while he waits for Sidney to adjust to the size of him takes more effort than he’d ever thought possible. He needs to move. He needs to move so bad.

“Sid,” he croaks out. “Sid, can I?”

“Yeah. Yeah, fuck me.”

Zhenya does. He pulls back until just the head of his dick rests inside Sidney before snapping his hips forward, driving into him as deep as their position allows.

Sidney groans appreciatively, and Zhenya does it again and again and again.

It’s good. About as good as Zhenya has refused to let himself think it could be between them.

His mouth finds Sidney’s neck, tongue lavishing the skin there as he fucks into him, his hand moving to reach over Sid's, long fingers wrapping around his cock.

“Is this what you wanted, sweetheart?” he asks, slipping back into Russian and angling his hips until he finds Sidney’s sweet spot, identified by the high keening sound Sid makes in response. “Is this what you needed?”

He knows Sidney doesn’t understand what he’s saying, but it hardly seems to matter. He appears incapable of answering him even if he had. He’s beyond words, reduced to breathy, high little _oh’s_ every time Zhenya’s cock finds his prostate.

“Geno,” he manages eventually. “Geno, I’m so close. I’m so—”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Nearly there,” Zhenya says, and he’s still speaking Russian, but he can’t seem to remember his English. “That’s it, baby. I’m right here with you, I’ll take care of you—”

Sidney comes, spilling over Zhenya's fingers wrapped around him, his hole fluttering around Zhenya’s cock as he rides through his orgasm.

“You too, G,” Sidney tells him. He grabs Zhenya’s hand in his, ignoring the come as he tangle their fingers together. “Come on. Want to feel you come inside me.”

Zhenya drives his dick into him as deeply as he can, his mouth searching out Sidney’s as he reaches his own completion, filling him up from the inside.

They kiss messily, tongues stroking against each other until Sidney pushes him away weakly.

“My neck hurts,” he says, letting his head drop back to the pillow tiredly.

Zhenya hums, giving him one last kiss before gently easing out of him, his finger reaching down to check for any damage.

Sidney grunts at him dismissively. “I’m fine,” he says. He makes to roll out of bed but seems to think better of it. “Help me up, please?” He wrinkles his nose. “I need a shower. You too.”

“Bossy,” Zhenya accuses, but he’s smiling fondly, climbing out of bed so he can walk around to Sidney’s side, helping him off the mattress and to his feet.

He blinks in surprise when Sidney places a hand at his neck, drawing him in for a deep kiss.

“I just want to say thank you,” Sidney tells him when they pull apart. “I know that I’m asking a lot of you, and most of the time I feel like I’m taking advantage of your kindness, but I really think I would have gone crazy without you here to help me through all this, so. Just. Thank you.”

“Is my pleasure,” Zhenya jokes, poking his tongue out at the double entendre. He needs to keep things light between them. The alternative would be to say that he doesn’t want Sidney’s gratitude. He doesn’t need it. That of the two of them, Zhenya is the one taking advantage.

Sidney grins at him. “Nice,” he says approvingly, because they’ve both grown up in locker rooms and hockey players are all notoriously immature.

“Come. I make mess of you, have to clean up now.”

Sidney rolls his eyes, but allows Zhenya to guide him into the bathroom.

“Wait,” he says when Zhenya has helped him into the shower, reaching out to grab his hand to keep him from leaving. “Shower with me?”

Zhenya really shouldn’t. He should go back into the bedroom and take care of the bedding while Sidney gets cleaned up, but—

“Stay. Please.”

He stays.

**

“You know,” Duper says when Zhenya shows up for training camp a few days later. “This is going to backfire on you. You do realise that, don’t you?”

It’s the first thing he says after their initial greetings, but then Duper has never been one to beat around the bush, and he’s worried.

Zhenya can tell from the disapproving moue of his mouth and the furrow of his brows.

Which means he’s figured out what goes on between Sid and Zhenya these days. Or he thinks he’s figured it out.

Zhenya is not about to confirm it.

“Don’t know what you mean.”

Duper snorts. “There’s a hickey the size of Texas right here,” he says, leaning across his stall to poke at the mark on Zhenya’s collarbone. Sidney’s handiwork from the night before.

On the other side of him, Beau lets out a heartfelt, “Dude.” He stares at the hickey, fascinated. “Someone really went to town on you, didn’t they? Nice,” he says, and sounds only a little jealous about it.

A bro is a bro is a bro and all that.

“I thought you were shacked up with Sid these days. Who are you even getting freaky with right now?”

“It’s Sid, Sunshine,” Tanger interrupts them, which means Duper’s been running his mouth. Tanger glares darkly at Zhenya. “We should talk.”

“Uh.” Beau’s eyes grow wide, looking back and forth between them hesitantly. “I’m just gonna go over there,” he says, seeking refuge with the other baby Pens across the locker room.

Beau’s been up and down their lineup for years already, but he’s only been a regular for one season, and even then he missed huge chunks of it. He is far from a rookie, but he’ll always be one of the baby Pens in Zhenya’s eyes.

“Geno,” Tanger says, “you look well.” He looks disappointed the opposite isn’t true.

“Feel good too.” It’s not what Tanger wants to hear and Zhenya knows it. He might be one of their closest friends, but he doesn’t get to meddle in his and Sidney’s relationship. He doesn’t get a say.

And it **is** a relationship, is the thing. As close to it as any Zhenya has ever been in. Better than, even.

Zhenya has done a lot of thinking these last few days. He knows there’s a deadline to his arrangement with Sidney, as loose and unspoken as it may be. He knows that one day, might be soon even, things will end between them and Zhenya has to let Sidney go. He just wants to enjoy being with him while he still can, wants to enjoy their time together until Sid doesn’t need him anymore; while he waits for that day to come, Zhenya is going to soak up all of Sidney’s attention. He’s going to bask in his presence and easy affection.

He gets to have Sid now, and he is happy with that. He is.

Zhenya is not going to let Tanger or anybody else ruin it, no matter how much they disapprove.

Tanger eyes him for a long moment, and Zhenya holds his gaze, unflinching.

Finally, Tanger sighs. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” He sits down in Beau’s vacated stall, nudging Zhenya with his shoulder. “You’re my friend too, you know. I love you, man.”

Zhenya is so startled he can only gape at him.

For so long, it’s been Zhenya and Tanger, looking out for Sid’s interest, because Sidney, for whatever else he is, is amazingly generous. People ask and demand things of him all the time, and Sidney gives and gives and gives.

And while all the Toms in the world try to take advantage of that, Tanger and Zhenya make sure they don’t.

It’s been awhile since anyone has bothered to do the same for Zhenya.

He clears his throat. Feels his eyes tear up a little as he says, “Yeah, me too.” He pulls Tanger in for a hug, giving him a hard slap on the back just because.

“Dude,” Zhenya can hear one of the newest baby Pens say as they walk past them. “This is a lot more sentimental than I thought the Big League was going to be. Is it always like this?”

He turns his head just in time to see Flower appearing out of nowhere it seems like. Flower throws a friendly arm around the guy’s neck, grinning frighteningly wide as he says, “Oh, little one. You have much to learn. Let me tell you about sleepover Thursdays.”

Zhenya shakes his head. The season doesn’t really begin until Flower starts trolling the rookies and at least one prank war is underway.

He grins. It’s going to be a good year.

**

“Missed you at camp today,” Zhenya tells Sidney when he comes home that afternoon. “Should come with tomorrow. See the guys, meet the rookies.”

“Tom called,” Sidney says to that, and then, “I’m really big now, though. What if someone makes a fat joke.”

It takes Zhenya a moment to separate Sidney’s words into two different sentences. He tackles the one he knows he has a chance of handling first.

“No one say you fat. Duper kick their ass, and Tanger too.” He doesn’t mention Flower. Flower would absolutely call him fat.

He walks over to where Sidney is lying on his side on the sofa, stopping to give him a kiss before he settles down at the other end with Sidney’s feet in his lap. “I’m kick ass too,” he promises, removing the sock from Sid’s right foot before starting to knead his thumb into his heel, grinning when Sidney moans loudly in appreciation, his eyes rolling with pleasure.

He is always so much more accommodating when getting a foot massage.

“Come with. Make everyone happy.”

“Okay. But I’m not going in with you; it’s too early and it takes me forever to get ready now. I’ll just catch a ride with Mario.”

Zhenya hums. He resolves to send a text to Mario later, asking him to drop by to pick up Sidney on his way to work tomorrow.

Sidney is likely to forget on his own. Pregnancy brain makes him absentminded sometimes.

“Tom called,” Sidney says again after a few seconds of silence.

Zhenya closes his eyes. They’re doing this then.

“What he say?”

“He wants to be here when the baby is born. Says he’s flying in next week.”

“Your due date next week. What if baby come before?”

Sidney rolls his eyes, looking more than a little annoyed when he says, “No one ever said he makes much sense.” He huffs. “He wants to talk about custody. About how we’re going to raise the baby.”

He looks worried, as if he’s thinking Tom could show up at any time to take the baby away, never mind that the baby isn’t even born yet. Never mind that the last Zhenya had heard, Tom didn’t even want the baby.

People change their mind all the time, though.

What if Tom has changed his? What if he wants the baby and Sidney too?

“I don’t want shared custody,” Sidney says, and Zhenya blinks, turning his head to catch Sidney’s gaze with his own.

“You don’t?”

Fuck. This is it. This is when Sidney ends things between them and—

“I want sole custody. I’ll fight for it if I have too.”

Zhenya exhales, suddenly able to breathe again. He hadn’t even realised he’d been holding his breath. He closes his hand around Sidney’s foot, squeezing gently in comfort.

“You think will be problem?” he asks.

“No. Maybe. I already have my lawyers working on it.”

It’s the first time Zhenya hears of it. Sidney has kept it close to his chest, which means he’s been worrying about it on his own for God knows how long. Zhenya can't help but smile, feeling that same familiar surge of exasperated fondness he often feels for Sidney.

“Hey,” he says, making sure Sidney’s eyes are on his before continuing. “Will be okay. No matter what happen, I’m help. We figure it out together. You and me.”

“Yeah?” Sidney asks, lips stretching into his own smile, soft and a little teasing at the edges. “And the baby, too, right?”

He looks ridiculous, stretched out on Zhenya’s couch with his big belly and rounded cheeks filled in by the pregnancy weight. His too long hair is a mess from where his head is propped up on the armrest and his feet are so swollen they don’t even look like feet anymore.  

He looks ridiculous, but.

Zhenya has never seen anyone so beautiful. He loves him so much, doesn’t ever want for him to not be there, in Zhenya’s home, taking ownership of his bed and his couch and of Zhenya himself. As if Sidney has been there from the very beginning. As if he’s always belonged in Zhenya’s house.

(Maybe he has.)

“Yeah,” Zhenya says. “The baby, too.”

**

To no one’s surprise, Tom isn’t there in time for the baby’s birth.

Less predictably, neither is Zhenya.

He is still at the UPMC complex when Sidney goes into labour; Zhenya thanks whatever god is watching out for them that he had texted Mario to pick Sid up at their place the night before. Apparently, Sidney first tried texting Zhenya when his water broke, but the rookies, attempting to prank the prankster, had mistaken Zhenya’s phone for Flower’s, and Zhenya doesn’t receive the texts until it’s too late.

Luckily, Mario had been there to take him to the hospital, and he eventually thinks to call the front office to have someone let Zhenya know that Sidney is having the baby.

Too say Zhenya is furious when he finds out is an understatement.

(The rookies are all scared of him now.)

By the time he makes it to the hospital with Duper, Tanger and Flower hot on his heels, Sidney has given birth to a beautiful baby boy.

They get some lifted brows as they’re guided through the halls by a no-nonsense nurse; she keeps eyeing them disapprovingly, shaking her head at their hockey gear, but then they’re led into Sid’s private room and Zhenya only has eyes for Sidney.

He looks worn and tired, although he’s sitting upright in the bed, holding the baby in his arms.

Zhenya is by their side in seconds, claiming the chair Mario graciously surrenders to him.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Sidney asks him. His voice is hushed, his eyes fastened firmly on the baby.

“Yes,” Zhenya croaks out. His throat feels dry, and he has to blink against the sudden flurry of tears. “Beautiful. Like his daddy.”

Sidney looks up at that, the smile he gives Zhenya huge and blinding. “Do you want to hold him?”

As if you even have to ask, Zhenya wants to say, but then there is this tiny creature in his arms and suddenly he’s struggling to remember any of the English he worked so hard to learn.

“Hey, baby,” he says, the words slipping out fast and easy in his native tongue. He stares down at the little boy, committing his face to memory. “Hey there. Look at you, you’re so gorgeous. Couldn’t wait to be born, could you? Just like your daddy, always so impatient. Always ahead of the curve.”

He looks up. “You okay? Everything go okay?” he asks Sidney, switching back to English as his eyes scan him for any sign to the contrary.

Sidney nods. “Yeah, it went really well, actually. I think it took about an hour or so after my water broke before he was born?” He looks to Mario for confirmation, waiting for his nod before he continues. “It didn’t even hurt that much. I mean, I definitely felt it, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”

“You should have seen it,” Mario says, breaking his usual calm demeanour as he shakes his head in amazement. “Even the doctors kept saying how quick and easy it was going. They didn’t even get to ask if he wanted something for the pain before it was over.”

Duper whistles appreciatively. “You’re lucky,” he tells Sid. “Carole-Lynne screamed bloody murder with each of the kids. Says it’s the worst pain she’s ever been through.”

“I guess it’s different for everyone,” Sidney says, lifting one shoulder into a shrug. “My mom was in a lot of pain with me and Taylor, I think.” He focuses back on Zhenya and the baby, holding his arms out impatiently. “Give him back, please.”

The ‘please’ is nothing more than a courtesy, and Zhenya knows better than to deny him. He gently hands the baby back into Sidney's waiting arms, missing the weight immediately.

“Have you decided on a name?”

Sidney shakes his head at Tanger’s question. “Not yet. I thought we had another week, you know. And I guess I didn’t want to commit to a name before I knew what he looked like.”

“Smart,” Flower says. “We had Victoire picked out for Estelle before we decided she was an Estelle.”

Sidney nods, but he doesn’t answer, too wrapped up in his son, watching his little face scrunch up cutely as he yawns.

Zhenya doesn’t know that he’s seen anything so adorable before. “How long you and baby have to stay?” he asks, already itching to have them both home and settled.

“Until tomorrow,” Mario interjects quickly before Sidney can answer, and Zhenya has to hide his grin; he can so easily imagine Sidney badgering the staff and Mario to let him go home already. “Just as a precaution.”

“Okay,” Zhenya says. He leans over, pressing a kiss to the baby’s head and then Sidney’s too when he looks ready to protest. “I’m go home, change into clean clothes and come back. Tomorrow we take baby home, да?”

Sidney grumbles, but he agrees easily enough, and when Zhenya arrives to take him home the next day, he’s too busy fussing over the baby to protest the injustice of having been forced to spend the night.

“You have everything, right? We’re not forgetting anything?”

“Have baby, not need anything else,” Zhenya jokes as he shoulders Sidney’s overnight bag and steers the wheelchair the nurse who’d helped them pack insisted was hospital protocol before blithely pushing Sidney into it, handing him the baby to keep him from getting up again.

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious. I’m being serious here, G.”

Zhenya sighs. He stops wheeling, walking around the chair so he can crouch before Sid and the baby.

“Hey. Not forget anything, I promise. Everything in the house is ready, just have to take baby home.”

Sidney is biting his lip, looking between his son and Zhenya worriedly. “What if I’m not a good parent?” he whispers. He looks terrified at the prospect. “What if I make a mistake and mess him up?”

“You won’t,” Zhenya says easily, and knows it to be true. “Might make mistake sometime, but everyone do. No one is perfect parent first time, just look at Flower.” He pokes his tongue out, getting the smile he was hoping for at the dig at their friend; Flower is a good father, and he had adored Estelle from the moment she was born, but he’d been terrified of her those first couple of weeks.

“Besides, I’m help. Won’t have to do alone.”

“Yeah?” Sid asks hopefully. He’s smiling, looking at Zhenya like—

“Yeah,” Zhenya promises, cutting off his own wishful thinking. “I’m help. Always.”

Sidney’s smile morphs into a grin, his whole face lighting up with it. “Always,” he repeats, looking more beautiful than he has any right to.

It's really not fair, Zhenya thinks.

“You should kiss me now,” Sidney adds, his eyes gleaming brightly when Zhenya does little more than stare at him.

And well, Zhenya has never turned down a kiss from him before. He’s not about to start now.

**

Bringing the baby home is nothing like Zhenya had thought it would be like. He’s imagined loud screaming and late-night feedings with diaper changes and all of that stuff. Which still happens, of course, but it’s not like anything he’s been expecting.

The thing is, now that Sidney isn’t pregnant anymore, Zhenya thought that Sidney would move back into his own room, that there was no need for them to share a bed anymore. It had started out because Zhenya kept the baby from moving too much when Sid was trying to sleep, after all.

But when Sidney puts the baby in the crib that first night, fussing about with the blanket until the baby is tucked in just so, he returns to Zhenya’s room with the baby monitor in hand and crawls into his side of the bed the way he has every night for the last couple of months.

Zhenya is decidedly confused.

He continues to be so when the days pass and they take turns getting up to see to the baby during the nights, and when Sidney keeps giving him a kiss in the morning, smiling at him tiredly, but soft and sweet and loving.

Honestly, Zhenya has no idea what’s going on.

It all comes to a head when a few days after the baby is born, on what was supposed to be Sidney’s actual due date, Tom shows up in Pittsburgh.

Zhenya is the one who goes to open the door when the bell rings and he takes great delight in the punch he lands on Tom’s nose.

“That’s for Sid’s eye,” he snarls at him, ignoring Sidney’s shocked, “Geno!” behind him.

“What the hell!” Tom curses. “The fuck is wrong with you?” He glares at Zhenya furiously, gingerly touching his fingers to his nose, checking for drops of blood. There are none, much to Zhenya’s disappointment, but he does feel gratified at seeing Tom's eyes water in pain, a few stray tears escaping down his cheeks. 

Good, he thinks. He’s glad it hurts.

“Fucking asshole,” Tom says. “Are you gonna let me in or what?”

Zhenya clenches his fist, but before he can punch him again, Sidney places a hand on his shoulder, whispering a quiet, “Don’t,” under his breath.

“You should have called first, Tom,” Sidney says, focusing his eyes on his ex. "You can’t just show up like this unannounced.” 

Tom shrugs carelessly. “Said I was coming, didn’t I? Come on, let me in already. I want to see the baby. It’s a boy, right?” he asks unnecessarily. Despite Zhenya’s protests, Sidney had called to inform him about the birth of his son.

“He’s sleeping right now,” Sidney says. He tugs at Zhenya’s shoulder, moving them back to make room for Tom to step through the door.

Zhenya glares at Tom, but lets him enter.

“So? It’s not like I’ll wake him.” Tom looks at Sidney, lifting his brows expectantly. “Look, I just want to see him, okay? He’s my son.”

Sidney sighs, but he can’t deny that, much as Zhenya would have liked him to. “Fine. But I mean it, Tom, I just got him to sleep. If you wake him, I swear to—”

“Chill, all right. Like I said, I just want to see him.”

They argue all the way up the stairs, mercifully keeping their voices down as they approach the nursery.

Zhenya watches them, but doesn’t follow. He doesn't want to be there when Tom sees his son for the first time. Doesn’t think he could handle it. It feels wrong. Zhenya is in no position to deny him the right, but it feels wrong.

He walks into the kitchen, pulling out ingredients to make dinner in an effort to distract himself. He gets lost in the prep and has already put the lasagne in the oven by the time Sidney finds him, humming soft and off tune at the baby drowsing sleepily against his shoulder.

“Tom leave?” Zhenya asks, faux casual. “Didn’t hear the door.”

Sidney rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Turns out he can be quiet.”

They look at each other, a silence falling between them, strange and unfamiliar.

“What,” Zhenya begins, “what happen?” He’s not sure he’s going to like the answer, but he has to know, he has to know if Sidney and the baby are—

“He came to say goodbye, I guess.”

Zhenya blinks. “What?”

Sidney sighs, gently easing the baby into the baby sleeper they have placed in the kitchen. “He said he doesn’t want to be a dad, which, I don’t know. I guess I already knew.” Sidney lets out another breath, stroking a finger across the baby’s cheek. “How could anyone not want him. He’s perfect.”

Zhenya moves to join him, hesitantly putting his arms around Sidney’s waist from behind, uncertain of his welcome. Sid melts into him, though, and Zhenya tightens his grip, resting his chin on his shoulder so he can peer down at the baby.

Sidney is right. He is perfect. They're both perfect.

Tom is a fucking idiot.

“What happen now?”

Sidney shrugs. “I get sole custody like I wanted. Tom said his parents would still like to be involved, though. They want to come for a visit if it’s okay with me.”

“Is okay?”

“Yeah. They’re good people. Nothing—” He breaks off, swallowing before he says, “Nothing like Tom. I’ll give them a call, tell them to make the trip with my parents.”

Zhenya closes his eyes for a second. He’s not sure what to do, what to say to make this better for him; Sidney sounds sad despite everything. “You okay?” he asks finally.

Sidney nods. “I’m fine, it’s just, it seemed so final, you know. What Tom and I had, it was a mess, for sure, but.” He smiles down at the baby. “We got this little one out of it.”

“Should find name for him. Can’t keep saying ‘little one’ or ‘baby’ forever.”

“Oh,” Sidney says, turning in Zhenya’s arms to beam up at him. “I thought we could name him Nikolai after your grandfather? We can call him Nikky for short.”

After his—?

“Sid,” Zhenya says slowly, because nothing Sidney just said makes any sense. “What you mean?”

“Well, we should definitely give him a name that’s easy to say in Russian too, right? I don’t want your parents to have to struggle. And I like Nikolai. It’s a good, strong name.”

Zhenya is stunned silent for a moment. It sounds as if Sidney is trying to say that Zhenya gets to have a part in naming the baby. That his opinion matters. As if the baby is his too.

And that—  

Is Sid—?

“I love you,” Zhenya blurts out. “I’m in love with you.”

Sidney blinks up at him. “I love you too,” he says, easy as anything, and Zhenya gets it now.

Because while he had put a deadline on their relationship, Sidney never had.

As usual, he was ahead of the curve.

Zhenya just wishes Sidney would have thought to keep him in the loop. It would have saved him so much grief over these last couple of months.

He laughs, feeling as if his heart could burst from everything he’s feeling right now. “Love you,” he says again, hardly able to believe he’s allowed to say that now. He leans in to kiss Sidney, hard and firm, leaving no doubt as to just how much he adores him.

That should never be in doubt.

“Does this mean you’re okay with Nikolai?” Sidney asks when they break apart, panting lightly against Zhenya’s mouth.

Zhenya grins, stealing another kiss. God, he’s so in love with him.

“Yes. Nikolai is good name. Best.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am forever grateful to [Arcade](http://arcadeghostadventurer.tumblr.com/) who basically held my hand through all of this and saw me through several versions of it, and to [North](http://northisnotup.tumblr.com/) who was mercifully kind enough to help me through the dreaded porn scene. Thank you both so much for listening to me ramble.
> 
> For [tropdangereuse](http://tropdangereuse.tumblr.com/), I'm sorry you had to read through 10k of Sid and Geno's silliness before we got to the pregnant sex.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] All Across the Field by Hazel_3017](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11194593) by [brightnail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightnail/pseuds/brightnail)




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